Updated March 25, 2008, with the latest content from the official Prototype 1.6.0.2 documentation. This edition includes an introductory chapter describing the high-profile additions and changes since Prototype 1.5, including changes that are not backwards compatible.

What’s Prototype?

Prototype is a JavaScript framework that takes the pain out of coding JavaScript by papering over browser differences and filling gaps in the language itself. Prototype is the creation of Sam Stephenson and a core team of open-source developers.

Where did this PDF come from?

Starting in January 2007, the Prototype team began publishing complete API documentation online, to the relief and joy of web developers everywhere.

As a guy who likes this kind of thing on paper, my only disappointment was that there was no PDF version. So I threw together a quick Perl script to download the content, convert it to docbook XML and turn it into a tidy PDF, complete with hyperlinked table of contents and the look and feel of a traditional technical manual.

With the permission of the Prototype team, I’m sharing it with you (see the license info below).

Print it

The PDF is designed for double-sided printing. If your printer doesn’t do that, or it just seems like too much work, please consider saving paper by printing two pages per sheet after printing the cover page. On Mac OSX, for example, you can do it like so:

License

This PDF is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license. This means that you can copy, redistribute or create your own derivative works from this PDF, provided that you do so with the same Creative Commons license and include the following attribution:

Copyright 2006-2008 Sam Stephenson.

Prototype is a JavaScript framework that aims to ease
development of dynamic web applications
<http://www.prototype.js.org>. Prototype was created by
Sam Stephenson who released the framework as an
open-source project in February 2005. Other members of the
core development team are: Thomas Fuchs, Justin Palmer,
Andrew Dupont, Dan Webb, Scott Raymond,
Mislav Marohnić, Christophe Porteneuve, Tobie Langel
and Seth Dillingham.

This PDF book version of the Prototype API reference was
created by Josh Clark <http://www.globalmoxie.com/>, but
all content comes from the Prototype site and is the
intellectual property of Sam Stephenson and the Prototype
core team.

This PDF is distributed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/>. This
means that you can copy, redistribute or create your own
derivative works from this PDF, provided that you do so
with the same Creative Commons license and include the
foregoing notice.